Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: NeXT software size
Message-ID: <21608@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 15 May 91 17:32:33 GMT
References: <48808@ut-emx.uucp> <1991May11.204458.5903@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 24

In article <1991May11.204458.5903@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes:
>greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) writes:

>>Why on Earth would NeXT use such slow memory?  I'm literally shocked...

>  They're hoping the 040 4K caches will soak up most of the accesses.
>This is just a design tradeoff, which probably hits NeXT 040 for about
>10-15% performance vs. say a 128K cache of SRAM.

It's kind of a general rule that, as processors get more on-board cache, the
external memory systems will have less of an effect.  What this implies, for
example, is that all '040 systems, taken together, will have much less of a
performance difference from one another than all '030 systems.  That, of 
course, assumes that no one is building any really stupid '040 designs, just
some that are less than perfect.  Which, as mentioned here before, always
happens.  Especially when you're trying to build a system for a PC price,
you can't always have the blazing memory speeds most workstations and mini
computers get.


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
      "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.